Abstract
Recent years have shown an increased interest in developing manufacturing processes for graphene and its derivatives that consider the environmental impact and large scale cost-effectiveness. However, today’s most commonly used synthesis routes still suffer from their excessive use of harsh chemicals and/or the complexity and financial cost of the process. Furthermore, the subsequent transfer of the material onto a substrate makes the overall process even more intricate and time-consuming. Here we describe a single-step, single-cell preparation procedure of metal-supported reduced graphene oxide (rGO) using the principle of bipolar electrochemistry of graphite in deionized water. Under the effect of an electric field between two stainless steel feeder electrodes, grapheme layers at the anodic pole of the wireless graphite were oxidized into colloidal dispersion of GO, which migrated electrophoretically towards the anodic side of the cell, and deposited in the form of rGO (d(002) = 0.395 nm) by van der Waals forces. For substrates chemically more susceptible to the high anodic voltage, we show that the electrochemical setup can be adapted by placing the latter between the wireless graphite and the stainless steel feeder anode. This method is straightforward, inexpensive, environmentally-friendly, and could be easily scaled up for high yield and large area production of rGO thin films.
Highlights
The most commonly used approaches for graphite exfoliation remain chemical, yielding graphene oxide (GO), and require the use of strong oxidizing agents such as KMnO4, NaNO3 and KClO3 in concentrated acids such as H2SO4 and HNO3, with the generation of toxic NO2, N2O2 and ClO223
In this work we present a straightforward single-step preparation method for metal-supported reduced GO (rGO) using an isolated bipolar graphite rod in deionized water
The principle of bipolar electrochemistry consists on applying a static electric field between two feeder electrodes which sets in opposite polarizations of the wireless conductor with respect to the surrounding medium
Summary
The most commonly used approaches for graphite exfoliation remain chemical, yielding graphene oxide (GO), and require the use of strong oxidizing agents such as KMnO4, NaNO3 and KClO3 in concentrated acids such as H2SO4 and HNO3, with the generation of toxic NO2, N2O2 and ClO223. Intrinsically strongly hydrophilic, allowing it to be readily dispersed in many solvents for large scale and low cost preparation of thin films This can be carried out for instance by dip coating[25], spin coating[26], electrophoretic deposition (EPD)[27], and others[28]. The apparent difference of potential between its opposite ends would drive (if sufficient enough) simultaneous faradaic reactions of oxidation at the anodic pole, and reduction at the cathodic pole This principle has been used for numerous applications, such as bulk manufacturing of dissymmetric Janus type objects[30], establishing electrical contacts[31], controlling the linear and rotational motion of microswimmers[32], driving electrochemiluminescent reactions[33], batch testing of electrocatalysts activity[34] and corrosion behavior of materials[35], amongst many others[36]. In addition to its simplicity and potential for large scale production, the merit of our method is that it is inexpensive, operates at ambient temperature, and is environmentally-benign because it does not require the use of any harsh chemicals
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